


A ton étoile

by mermaiddrunk



Category: Dracula (TV 2013)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-24
Updated: 2013-11-24
Packaged: 2018-01-02 12:44:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1056905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mermaiddrunk/pseuds/mermaiddrunk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I shouldn't love this pairing. I foresee so much heartbreak ahead. And yet I couldn't help myself. </p><p>A short exploration of Mina and Lucy. Paris. Post 1x04.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A ton étoile

 

**A ton étoile**

They’ve had too much port. Mina is aware of this because her cerebellum is in dysfunction, causing a mild state of ataxia and the gentle swell of euphoria. Lucy is aware of this because of the warm glow in her best friend’s cheeks and the way neither of them can stop giggling.

It’s barely dinner time and sun still burns hot on the cobbled streets of Paris. The windows have been thrown open, letting in the afternoon heat and air that smells of sweet rolls and perfume - so different from the smoke and sweat of London’s streets. The port running scarlet through their veins warms their bodies even more and they throw off their dresses, heavy with lace and chiffon, ribbons and silk. Their cotton undergarments provide minimal relief, but for propriety’s sake, they must do. Propriety takes the form of Lady Westenra, who tittles and tuts in her foyer, barely giving notice to her only child and her playmate.

Inside the sunlit cocoon of Lucy’s grand bed chamber, they sink into the fluffy mattress, Mina on her back, her eyes fixed on the heavy saffron canopy above them, and Lucy, draped across the bed, her head cushioned by Mina’s abdomen, her yellow curls splash out like a tangled halo, her gaze trained on those perfectly flushed cheeks. Together, they make a haphazard cross out of pale, slender limbs.

“I do believe,” Mina hiccups loudly, which causes them both to dissolve into another fit of giggles. “That I am drunk.”

“Well I should think so,” Lucy responds once her breathing returns to normal. “You consumed almost three bottles of port.” Three bottles that were initially opened for a mere tasting.

“If I recall correctly, I was not alone in this endeavour.” Mina reaches down to tap Lucy’s forehead and distractedly slides her fingers into that mass of hair that lies fanned out over her belly and onto the mattress. If she hears Lucy’s sharp intake of breath, she doesn’t acknowledge it, her eyes still fixed upon that bulging canopy. She feels like she’s swimming. The warm breeze blows in through the curtains and Mina feels like she’s  eight years old, jumping off the rocks at Devon because Lucy and Jonathan were too afraid to do it first. 

“Are you not glad I dragged you here?”

Lucy’s voice pulls her out of the depths, and she blinks languidly. “I am.” Mina idly twirls a blonde ringlet around her finger. “This weekend has been exactly what I needed.”

“Yes,” Lucy’s breath catches as Mina’s fingers tickle her scalp. “You’ve- you’ve been spending far too much time in that dusty laboratory.”

“It is not-”

“And besides,” Lucy interjects before Mina can argue; “This is our last weekend together before you’re to be an officially engaged woman.”

Mina’s mouth pulls into a smile as she says, “I’m already engaged.”

“Not by society standards. Not until the party.”

“You and your parties,” Mina’s still smiling. There is a fondness to Mina’s voice, a specific tone, laced with such tenderness, such… feeling, that something inside of Lucy, an indefinable _something_ , swells with courage and she finds the words tumbling from her lips before she can stop them.

“You _are_ the bravest person I know.”

Mina’s hand stills on her scalp for a second before resuming its loving petting. “What on earth are you talking about?”

“You,” Lucy breathes the word. “You’ve come so far. Do you remember,” Lucy pauses when Mina drops her chin to stare down at her. “Do you remember when we were little girls and we were in your garden, by that great Elm tree and I scraped my knee and, predictably, I wailed like a banshee…”

Mina snorts indelicately at the memory and nods.

“And you, sat me down and, really, it was nothing more than a graze,” Lucy lets out an embarrassed laugh before she continues, “But you, you kissed my knee ever so gently and,” her voice is trembling. She wishes her voice wouldn’t tremble, but she cannot, cannot stop speaking. “And you made it all better.” Lucy inhales and smiles gently at Mina who seems mildly perplexed. “You said you would do that for other people when you grew up. And now look where you are.”

“Oh Lucy,” Mina’s voice is soft and filled with wonder. Wonder at what, she couldn’t say.

Lucy rolls her eyes and turns them back to the ceiling. “I’m a sentimentalist. It’s ridiculous.”

Mina lets out a laugh. “I do believe you were my first patient.”

A fragile sort of silence extends between them and the long beams of sunlight filtering in through the curtains are replaced with shadows. The air cools, but neither woman moves to change garments.

“There are times,” Mina says suddenly, breaking through the glass wall of thoughts which have been building in Lucy’s mind. “-when I wish I were a man.”

For no apparent reason, Lucy’s heart thuds against her chest. “Surely not,” she exclaims, rolling over on her side, her arm now draped across Mina’s chest, so that she faces her fully.

 “If I were a man, no-one would question my rights to practice or my competence with the scalpel. I would be… unrestricted.” Mina practically shivers with the idea.

Lucy’s expression turns wry.  “You don’t truly mean that do you?” She scrunches up her nose, “Men are so...  so boorish and witless. You’re far too lovely and intelligent to be a man.”

“Is that so?” That cheshire grin of Mina’s.

“It is.” Lucy’s answer is definitive. “Besides, I know you take particular pleasure in mastering your profession as a woman.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because you become practically radiant whenever you tell me about how you’ve bested Peter Wyland on an exam or that unfortunate ginger fellow, what was his name? Ralph something or other. The one who ‘accidentally’ nicked you with his knife-”

“-scalpel.” Mina automatically corrects her.

“Hmm.”

“Briars.”

“Pardon?”

“His name,” Mina extrapolates, “is Ralph Briars.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

There’s that look again. Mina’s eyes shine with a kind of awe usually reserved for shooting stars and complex tracheotomies.

Lucy’s heart, that poor, beating muscle, responds to this expression by beating twice its usual rate, causing its owner to feel a sudden rush of blood to her cheeks. “What is it?” Lucy asks, buckling under the warmth of Mina’s gaze.

“You amaze me sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” Lucy goes for jest, because the alternative is unthinkable.

“How is it that you remember everything that is important to me?”

“Darling Mina,” these are the words Lucy cannot hold back, “Don’t you know by now? What is important to you is important to me.”

Again, silence. This time, interrupted by soft breathing and the strains of an accordion played somewhere along the Seine.

Lucy’s fingers have wandered up and busy themselves by playing with the cotton strings of Mina’s undershirt. Her limbs feel as heavy as her eyelids, which close for a minute or two as the sounds of Paris float through the room as gently as the moths outside.

When Lucy finally speaks her tongue is thick with port and languor. “There are certain… advantages to being a man, I suppose.”

“Such as?” Mina had been dozing, flitting in and out of consciousness. Sometimes in her dreams, she speaks a language unfamiliar to her. A strange tongue, both harsh and lyrical. Sometimes she wakes up with tears on her cheeks. Now is not one of those times.

Oblivious, Lucy continues, speaking slowly, as if speaking her thoughts before she’s properly thought them. “Well, if I were a man, I could… I could travel.”

“You despise travel. The sea makes you ill and the train makes you feel claustrophobic.”

“Well, I could… start a business.”

Lucy’s head bounces against Mina’s stomach as Mina chuckles. “You’re secured enough in your father’s fortune to buy into a dozen businesses and you’ve never cared a lick about economy or industry.”

Lucy sighs dramatically, “Well, if I were a man, I could court anyone I wanted.”

“Lovely Lucy,” Mina’s clearly amused now, “you have all of London’s society at your heels. There aren’t enough days in the week to accommodate all of your suitors. Surely you have your pick.”

“I don’t want any of them. I want-”

The change in Lucy’s tone, the sheer petulance of it has Mina sitting up, displacing Lucy and forcing her to follow suit. Finally, they are facing each other, each crossed legged, knees on display, propriety be damned.

“What? What is it that you want?” Mina’s staring at her now, in that way Mina does, all concern and care and Lucy feels herself unravel and she cannot bite her tongue, despite every warning bell that rings against her ribcage.

“Love.” It’s a breath, a murmur, a mere echo of sound, but it is said and she cannot take it back.

Mina’s face, that beautiful face crumples as she says, “Oh, Lucy. You’ve never spoken like this before.”

“It’s silly. I’m being ridiculous.” She shakes her head, hiding behind a tumble of curls, where it’s safe, where cannot see Mina’s ignorant pity.

“You’re not ridiculous! There is nothing the matter with wanting to fall in love. Love is divine, it’s life. I’m fully aware of how lucky I am to have found Jonathan-”

She scoffs. It cannot be helped.  And her embarrassment is transformed into anger. Anger at Mina, at bloody Harker, at herself most of all. “Yes, you and Jonathan are the picture of bliss.” Spite drips from her teeth like blood. “Cupid has certainly wasted all of his arrows on you two.”

“Lucy!” Mina is hurt. She’s hurt because Lucy is hurting. Because she knows she is the cause it, though she cannot fully understand why. Can she not love both her fiancé and her best friend equally? Must Lucy have it all?

But Lucy is immediately repentant. She offers a tight smile, one that crinkles the sides of her eyes, and holds back tears. “I’m sorry. The day has caught up with me it seems.”  She reaches out and firmly claps Mina’s hands between hers. Almost instinctively, Mina intertwines their fingers.

“Have I upset you so terribly?”

It’s heartbreaking business, being Lucy Westenra. “No, sweet, sweet Mina. I’m not upset, I’m-”

“You’re what?”

Lucy sighs. She sighs because she knows what is about to happen. It is inevitable. The heady mix of port and Paris and that bloody accordion has created the most dangerous of potions and Lucy is unable to do anything but speak a truth that she has kept hidden for as long as she’s been able to write her name. The question is simple.

 “Why Harker?”

Mina is visibly thrown. “Pardon?”

“Why Jonathan Harker?” Lucy sits up on her knees. She’s trembling, but she must go on. There’s no way back now. “We’ve known him since before he had a wisp of fuzz on his cheeks, all elbows and knees. He was a gangly thing with no fortune and no name to speak of. He does not _see_ you or respect your passions.  And yet, yet you chose him. You continually choose him.” She takes a ragged breath.

“ _Why_?” It is a plea, not a question.

A beat passes, then two. Mina gives the barest of shrugs. It’s simple, is it not? “Because I love him.” Is that what Lucy wanted to hear? Will that ease her conniption?

Mina cannot understand the tears running down Lucy’s cheeks. She wants to kiss them away and have them never, ever reappear, but the woman trembling before her is both frightening and tragic. She is both a stranger and a sister and something more, something just beyond Mina’s comprehension.

 “You love him,” Lucy echoes softly. She seems to deflate. Her fists unclench and her body sags.

Mina feels obliged to give further justification. “I do. And he was always there, Lucy. There was never any other man-”

 “No.” Lucy interjects; her anger has dissipated into the most tragic of expressions, “No other _man_.”

Mina swallows back tears and leans forward, so that their foreheads are touching. As girls, they would spend hours like this, having hushed conversations, Lucy would tell the most fantastic tales of knights and princesses, stories told to her by a father now buried and forgotten, and Mina would listen, gasping in terror or excitement and breathing in Lucy’s breath.

They sit like this now, older and this time, cloaked in misery and maudlin, compassion and confession.

“I _love_ you.” Mina says firmly, feeling her heart clench on each syllable.

Her reward is a wide, watery smile that never quite reaches Lucy’s eyes. “I know.”

“Can you not pretend to be happy for me?”

“Yes. Yes, I can pretend.”

Mina smiles wide despite the tears on her cheeks. “Thank you.”

Under a spell of impulse and recklessness, Lucy leans in and kisses Mina on the mouth. Their lips are both wet with stray tears. The kiss is close-mouthed and salty, but too firm and too desperate to be considered ‘sisterly’. When Lucy pulls back, Mina’s eyes are closed and her breath irregular.

When she opens them, Lucy is off the bed and standing in front of her oversized cupboard. “We need to make haste if we’re ever going to make our reservation at Chez Albert. You know the French are so terribly pedantic. Now, to decide between the violet bodice or the chartreuse. I have the most darling corsage to go with the chartreuse. I shall need Millie’s help with this one. These new lacings are so annoyingly complex. Mina dear, are you coming along?”

Mina watches her go. Like a switch that generates electrical current. Lucy. _Her_ Lucy. All fire and spark. All sweetness and sunshine. With startling clarity and a wave of nausea that she cannot possibly blame on the port, Mina suddenly realises that Lucy shan’t be the only one pretending from now on.

  **Fin**

 

 


End file.
